Had one too many drinks? 8 ways to sober up fast

Water may be as good at clearing up a boozed-up brain as it is at curing your thirst. “Alcohol dehydrates the body which causes a lot of the side effects of alcohol,” said Dr Zehra Siddiqui. “Also it does help to dilute the alcohol.” The old adage of downing a healthy glass of H2O per every goblet full of unhealthy hooch actually seems to be true.

Staying hydrated we all know is very healthy. But did you know these 10 ways your body changes when you start drinking enough water?

What if popping a pill could immediately let any imbiber ace a DUI test? A team at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science is working on one that contains oxidase to break down alcohol and a second enzyme to clean up the toxic waste that oxidase causes. The study, which appears in Nature Nanotechnology, suggests the capsule essentially processes alcohol the way the liver does. “With further research, this discovery could be used as a preventative measure or antidote for alcohol intoxication,” said study author Yunfeng Lu, PhD, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, in a news release. Lu recently reported that the treatment decreased the blood alcohol level in mice by 45% in four hours.

Fizzy drinks can be as fun as their end-of-the-night results are frightening. Carbonated beverages such as beer, champagne or even rum served with cola may speed up your body’s absorption of alcohol more than the non-bubbly kind. In this 2007 study of 21 people, 66% of people who consumed vodka absorbed the alcohol faster if it was mixed with a carbonated beverage compared with water. So next time you’re thinking about ordering a vodka tonic… you may want to hold the tonic and choose a different mixer.

Bread-based buffets may help soak up alcohol but having any type of food in your stomach can help slow down your absorption of alcohol, and thus reduce your chances of getting too intoxicated. “Eating a high-carb diet lowers the ratio of alcohol in your blood and to slow absorption,” says Dr Siddiqui. Meals high in fat, protein or carbohydrate will delay gastric emptying, and thus lower the amount of alcohol that is absorbed, according to a 2012 review in the journal Clinical Liver Disease.

Mick Jagger wasn’t referring to Jäger when he sang “Time Is On My Side” because it takes your body around an hour to absorb one drink, says the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking. And the more you drink, the more time it takes for the alcohol to be eliminated from your system, the group notes.

They’re not just for post-spin class. Indeed, your average ginger-apple-carrot juice is loaded with all manner of goodness that’ll get you out of your drunk doldrums faster than you can say, “Can I get a side of wheat grass with that?” (Ugh. Maybe just don’t drink, period, so you can avoid saying that sentence altogether.) Depending what’s in them, freshly squeezed juices are really great, says Dr Siddiqui. “Pineapple, ginger, mint and coconut – that’s a personal favourite, but think fruit and veggies that are high in vitamin C and antioxidants.”

Now discover 10 ways to make vitamins and minerals work better for you.

Pub crawls could be better for you morning hangover than if you consumed the same amount sitting in just the one bar. “Exercise gets the blood flowing through the liver so it detoxes your blood faster,” says Dr Siddiqui. And the TV show MythBusters deemed the restorative abilities of a long jog after a lot of grog to be “plausible” (while also completely trashing the coffee-after-drinking theory as “busted”).

Not a runner? There are plenty of other exercises to get your blood flowing, like these childhood hobbies that double as calorie burning workouts.

While a loss of amore is often why we guzzle alcohol to begin with, a healthy dose of it could actually contain its ill effects. A study from the Universities of Sydney and Regensburg indicates that oxytocin, ie, the love hormone, injected into animals helped them quickly retain motor and brain function after alcohol impairment. The findings appear in  the much cited multidisciplinary research journal, PNAS. So instead of not having sex because of a headache, do it to avoid the three-martini brain buster that would otherwise be on its way.

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Source: RD.com

• Medically reviewed by Dr Michael Spertus